Dysfunctional - An Assassin's Guide to Reincarnating in Another World

Chapter 24 - Escaping Reality

Exams were just a day away now.

Aaand...I really don't feel like detailing the pain and suffering that I'd be going through over the next few days, so in the meantime, let's rewind a bit and go through a few random things that happened after the Brawl of Glory...

About a month and a half ago, we had a rare week where the topics we learnt during the theory classes were actually interesting. First off, an economic and political update.

Professor Rebo Tolsh's explanations were as boring as hell, so I'll summarize as usual.

You probably remember when I spoke about the non-aggression pacts that the countries formed between each other, and that the Rustlands didn't have such a pact with any of the other nations. Well, that was changing. Goldway, the second most prosperous country in this world, had reached out to and offered to form an alliance and non-aggression pact with the Rustlands.

Why?

Because their king had passed away, and the crown prince who had taken his place was very...whatever the opposite of corrupt was. In addition to forming a pact with this nation, he also wanted to do away with the class system and slavery in Goldway, making it into an equal society like the Rustlands was.

Though the actual forming of the pact wouldn't be likely to happen for at least a couple of months.

Professor Tolsh ended his explanation of the situation there, and the usually silent classroom began to fill with curious and intrigued whispers. No surprise there, this was a potentially historic moment for this world.

Though I had to say, if I'd learnt anything from the politics in my old world, is that this situation sounded like a recipe for disaster.

Goldway's new king was making seriously drastic changes, and while the majority of the population would likely be in favor of these changes, namely the middle class and peasant citizens, there was no way that the nobles of that country were all on board with it.

I certainly wouldn't be too optimistic about the changes being seamless, it was highly likely that factors like treason, coup-de-tats, assassination attempts and whatnot would arise in resistance to the change.

Society as a whole will always struggle to accept change, and that sentiment only gets amplified the more drastic the change is.

Then again, nothing is set in stone, I suppose only time will tell.

Alright then, onto the next surprisingly interesting topic. This one happened a couple of days later.

It was about certain areas on the map known as Forbidden Zones. I had previously come across them when I'd been studying this world's maps, but I wasn't able to find any information on them.

I've already explained what Death Zones are, they're basically small desert or wasteland-like areas that are teeming with monsters. They're high risk areas with no reward, unless your goal was to simply kill monsters, I guess.

The monsters in those areas are generally fairly weak, but it's their sheer numbers that can overwhelm you, but they're also territorial which means that almost never leave that area.

Forbidden Zones were a lot different. On maps, Death Zones are indicated using red circles, while Forbidden Zones are indicated using red Xs. As the name suggests, human entry was forbidden in these areas.

Why?

Because those areas contained powerful, complex sealed barriers. And within those barriers, were monsters that were so dangerous, that if they ever broke free from those barriers, they could literally bring humanity to extinction. The most dangerous Forbidden Zone was somewhere in the snowy plains between the Rustlands and Silvland.